DEQ backs Boardman closure

By KATHY URSPRUNG
The Dalles Chronicle

The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is recommending the state adopt Portland General Electric’s (PGE’s) haze control recommendation for the Boardman coal-fired power plant — with a few adjustments — in return for a firm commitment that the plant will close no later than 2020.

Department Director Dick Pedersen released the recommendation Thursday, following two public comment periods earlier this fall. The Environmental Quality Commission is expected to rule on the matter Dec. 9.

“The plan balances interests as best as possible,” said Andy Ginsburg, administrator of air quality for the DEQ. “PGE and the communities in Morrow County felt strongly that 2020 was necessary to give them time to build replacement power, address the change in jobs and revenue, and especially to consider renewable energy sources.”

“The more material you put into the system, the greater the possibility it could be overloading the ability of the existing electrostatic precipitator to collect,” Ginsburg said.

If the new technology does overload the system, the pollution limits will be adjusted just enough to prevent the problem, he said.

“But we have a backstop on that, so it can’t go too far,” he added.

Even if that happens, Ginsburg doesn’t expect an adjustment would make a material difference in the downwind air quality. The Columbia Gorge is most often downwind of the plant in the winter, when winds more commonly blow from the east.

“You’d have to add a lot of particulate to create a problem,” Ginsburg said.

“These are stringent controls,” Corson added. “It pushes the envelope a bit in terms of using the technology on a boiler the size of Boardman, but we feel it’s feasible and we want to move forward.” Under the 2009 Best Available Retrofit Technology (BART) plan for the coal plant, PGE is now required to install new pollution controls totaling almost $498 million between 2011 and 2017. The controls would allow the plant to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) haze pollution rules and stay in operation until 2040.

PGE approached state Environmental Quality earlier this year to request this less-expensive alternative, which would give the investor-owned utility time to develop other energy sources to replace the relatively inexpensive 600 megawatts of baseload power the Boardman plant provides.

The coal-fired energy plant employs 120 year-round workers and 200 seasonal workers, according to county officials, with a $7.6 million payroll and a $7 million local tax contribution.

“I think what they’ve come out with is consistent with the proposal we put forward, which was a topic of discussion in the latest round of DEQ comments,” said Steve Corson, PGE spokesman. “We feel this is a reasonable, workable 2020 proposal for Boardman that gives us time to transition to replacement power.”

If the state Environmental Quality Commission approves the plan next week, Corson is hopeful the EPA will also approve it in the first half of next year.

“We’ve put a lot of work in over the course of the past year to respond to concerns from regulators, and other stakeholders as well,” Corson said.

The proposed plan would drop the cost of haze pollution controls required to keep operating from $497.6 million to $102.6 million for the cost to install dry sorbent injection controls.

The plan also allows for a pilot test to make sure the new haze pollutant controls don’t interfere with mercury controls planned for installation beginning next year. As the name implies, dry sorbent injection shoots an absorbent material into the plant’s electrostatic precipitators to capture sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide. The technology has been used on smaller plants, but not one of the PGE plant’s size.

The proposed plan also offers an earlier out for PGE, similar to the third of three options the DEQ offered the utility earlier this year. Under terms of that option, PGE could keep operating until 2015 with limited added pollution control. That’s the date by which new haze controls would otherwise have to be installed.

PGE might face that choice if other factors come into play, Ginsburg said. For example, in October the utility received a federal notice of violation of air quality requirements under the Clean Air Act. EPA is currently investigating the matter, which could become another consideration in Boardman’s future.

The utility is also facing a stakeholder lawsuit from a coalition of environmental groups alleging violations of Oregon and federal air quality rules. 

Regardless, PGE is looking ahead.

If the plan wins state and federal approval, PGE plans to begin working with stakeholders.

“We’ve made an explicit commitment to customer groups, environmental organizations, employee groups and other stakeholders to look at what replacement options are available, and evaluate them as far as our integrated resource plan with the Oregon Public Utility Commission.”

If the recommendation does gain approval, Oregon will have a firm closure commitment from PGE for the first time, Ginsburg said. The DEQ does not have the power to close plants, only to establish requirements of operation. None of the agency’s previous proposals has included a firm closure date.

Federal regional haze rules, which the plan addresses, center primarily on the effects of industrial pollution on the view quality in designated Class 1 national parks and wilderness areas. Studies suggest the Boardman plant affects 14 such areas in Oregon, including the Mt. Hood Wilderness, as well as the Mt. Adams Wilderness in Washington. Under the haze rules, health is not the central concern. Instead, they consider the effect of haze on view quality.

However, the closure of the Boardman coal-fired plant will also have health effects.

“The Boardman plant is the state’s number one source of greenhouse gases,” Ginsburg said. “This really changes our profile as a state, depending on what power it is replaced with.”